“This is all too much, Candace,” says Abba. “Let’s talk about this later.”
“Fine!”
I storm to my room and slam the door. I lie on the floor and press my feet against the door. I hear footsteps. Someone turns the doorknob, but I put more strength in my legs. A knock.
“Candace, open this door,” says Umma gently.
“Bae-jjae-ra,” I shout.
I know I’ll regret saying this to Umma one day. But I glare at the ceiling, realizing I’m not actually mad at Umma; I’m mad at myself. This isn’t about viola lessons, or not getting to join chorale, or not going to Korea to train. This is about being honest about what I really want for once in my life. This is about me being brave.
I pound the door with my foot. I scream even louder, “Bae-jjae-ra!”
At dinner that night, Umma brings the boiling-hot pot of doenjang jjigae to the table with her bare hands—her skin is seriously made of dragon hide. I want to apologize, but I remember: This is my first time declaring what I really want. I’m not going to back down.
Abba brings out the whole, steaming marinated red snapper with the head and tail and everything still attached. This is probably disgusting beyond words to most people, but Tommy and I have this thing where we fight over who gets to eat the fish eye because Umma told us it was good luck when we were little. But tonight, Tommy gets no competition from me. He plucks out the snapper’s gooey gray eyeball with his chopsticks—“Yoink!”—and pops it into his mouth.
Everyone dips their spoons into the same jjigae pot but me. Umma and Abba praise Tommy for his team winning his baseball match. Game. Whatever.
I sit at the table not touching my food, glaring at everyone.
“What’s your problem?” Tommy asks. “You’ve been acting weirder than usual.”
I seethe in silence as Umma studiously ignores me. When no one says anything, I answer loudly, “My problem is, Umma and Abba are stomping on my dreams and ruining my entire life.”
“Whoa. Drama,” Tommy says. He scrapes off a huge slab of tender snapper meat with his spoon. “What happened?”
“What happened is, I put myself out there for once in my life, auditioned for a girl group at SLK’s K-pop company, defied all odds, and was the one singer out of thousands who passed the audition, and now Umma’s not letting me go to Korea to train.”
Tommy freezes mid-bite. His mouth is full of food and there’s a lone grain of sticky rice clinging to his bottom lip. “Seriously?” he asks.
There’s a silence around the table. Suddenly, my eyes water and my cheeks are volcanic. Again, shame rushes into my blood. Seeing my family’s faces—the fact that they now all know that I think I could possibly become a K-pop idol—that they know I want such a thing—is so horrifyingly embarrassing.
“It’s stupid, I know,” I say quietly.
“Actually, that’s pretty cool,” says Tommy.
“Really?” I stare at Tommy, totally shocked.
“Yeah.” He’s already devoured half of the snapper, which was about the size of a corgi. “I mean, I’m not that surprised. You’re obviously a really good singer.”
“I am?”
This may very well be the first compliment Tommy has ever given me during my fifteen years on this planet.
“I mean, yeah,” he says. “Everyone knows that. Plus, I hear you through the wall all the time. That song you wrote … the ‘expectations and whatever’ … it’s a little cheesy, but I can see people paying money to hear it. Not a lot, but some.”
Umma finally comes to life, waving this whole notion away. “Don’t encourage such nonsense,” she snaps. “Those Korean music companies are evil—they ruin lives. Most of them never even pay their idols and work them to death.”
Imani has prepped me well for this debate. “The companies are getting a lot better about that,” I say. “Besides, S.A.Y. is the most successful company in Korea and can afford to pay idols once they debut. They’re known for being one of the good ones. I mean, look at SLK.”
Umma purses her lips. “Candace, you’re very talented at singing. I’ve always known this about you. But why does it need to be anything more than your hobby? Do you know how lucky you are that all you have to do is work hard in school? That’s all you have to do to have a career where your thoughts and skills will be your value, unlike your abba and me.”
Her face droops with sadness. I wonder what Umma thinks her “value” is. I want to tell her that despite the things I yelled at her last night, her value has nothing to do with what she does. She’s the most valuable person in the world because she’s Umma.
She taps the table once. Her face instantly snaps back to her usual determined expression. “The fact is, Candace, that becoming a singer isn’t going to help your future—like I said last night, it’s not like Tommy’s baseball, which can help him get into a good school, which will help him get a good job. Your abba and I work so hard so you can do something respectable and useful to others. It’s an opportunity we never had.”
Abba clears his throat. He has a sad, contemplative smile on his face. He pats Umma’s hand. “Yubboh,” he says. Dear. “That’s not why we work so hard, you know that. We work so hard so Tommy and Candace can live for what makes them truly happy. That’s the opportunity we never had.”
I bite my lips to hold in my tears. Tommy pats my shoulder awkwardly with one hand while continuing to stuff his face with his other.
“Candace, don’t cry,” Umma says sternly. “Look at me.” She puts down her chopsticks and searches my eyes. “This is really your passion?”
I nod. Sobs stuck in my throat, I manage to get out my prepared argument: “Umma, just give me the summer, please. The S.A.Y. exec says they’re a few months away from debuting their new girl group. Then, if I don’t get picked to debut—and of course I won’t—”
“Yes, you will,” says Umma. “If you go, of course they’ll pick you. Who’s more talented or special than you?”
For a second, I’m totally overwhelmed by this unprecedented vote of confidence. I stare at Umma in wonder.
Abba says, “Candace of course has the talent.”
“All right, all right, let’s not go crazy here,” says Tommy.
“But, Candace,” says Abba, “there’s so much you don’t understand about Korean culture and the Korean mind-set. As an American girl, you can’t know. Things are difficult for young people in Korea right now. Getting into colleges and getting jobs is so competitive there, and it’ll be the same for debuting as an idol. I think you’ll be surprised just how hard a Korean trainee is willing to work, whether or not they have your natural gifts. To them, becoming a K-pop idol might not just be a dream or a passion like it is to you. It might be their only hope at a future.”
“I would work so hard,” I say. “Harder than I’ve ever worked in my life.”
Umma picks up her chopsticks again, grabs the last hunk of snapper meat left, and puts it in my rice bowl.
“I’m not saying yes,” she says with a sigh. “We have to think about it, and we certainly need to talk to someone at S.A.Y.”